Wind energy spins at the forefront of alternative power sourcesNot all are fans of the turbines, but Houston likes the electricity they generate

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, April 20, 2008

Lone Star Wind Farm leases property from four different ranches to place the turbines in Shackelford County near Abilene.

Lone Star Wind Farm leases property from four different ranches to place the turbines in Shackelford County near Abilene.

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

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Kent Thronqvist is operations manager of Lone Star Wind Farm.

Kent Thronqvist is operations manager of Lone Star Wind Farm.

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

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The sun rises behind turbines at the Lone Star Wind Farm near Abilene.

The sun rises behind turbines at the Lone Star Wind Farm near Abilene.

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

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Sergio Luna, assistant operations manager of Lone Star Wind Farm, inside a nacelle, a small room at the top of each turbine that houses the generator and other machinery that convert wind to electricity.

Sergio Luna, assistant operations manager of Lone Star Wind Farm, inside a nacelle, a small room at the top of each turbine that houses the generator and other machinery that convert wind to electricity.

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

Living Green: Sustainable resources blowing in the wind

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ABILENE — Steel and fiberglass forests are springing up along the ridges of the Texas plains, dwarfing the thorny mesquites.

Out here, the ground is already tapped; oil and gas lines have been siphoning natural resources for decades. But above ground is another story.

Wind farms are spreading across West Texas, converting wind to electricity and sending the power to bigger cities back east, including Dallas, San Antonio and Houston.

Texas, which is rich in wind, land and electricity demand, has been the country's top wind producer for the past two years.

And Houston has ordered a big piece of this renewable-energy pie.

City-owned facilities — which include airports, police stations, fire stations, wastewater treatment plants and more — use about 160 megawatts of electricity annually. Starting July 1, at least one-fifth of Houston's load will be generated by wind for the next five years.

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"We felt it was necessary to have an alternative energy source," says Issa Dadoush, director of the city's General Services Department. "Thus far, we're secured for 20 percent from wind, but we have the ability to bring it up to 50 percent of our load."

"We support wind energy, but the challenge is when we have turbines in major migratory paths along the Texas coast," says Anne Brown, executive director of the National Audubon Society's Texas office. Texas has major weather occurrences during migration, and if birds are forced to land on the ground in one location, they could fall into turbines and we could lose major numbers, she says.

Homeowners who live close to wind farms have complained about noise. And no matter where the turbines sit, they change the nature of the skyline.

On the farm

For centuries, people have harnessed wind to sail boats, grind grain and pump water.

But forget the rustic windmills you've seen in photographs of Holland. Forget the iconic grandeur of the old-time windmills that still pump water on some Texas ranches.

Wind turbines of the 21st century are sleek and efficient. And tall.

At Lone Star Wind Farm, which is owned and operated by Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy, each turbine measures 400 feet from the base of the tower to the tip of a blade in 12-o'clock position. That's longer than an upended football field. A small computerized panel inside the bottom of each tower provides detailed information about the tower and the wind above. A slim interior ladder along one side of the tower leads straight to the top.

Maintenance crews and visitors must harness themselves to a cable before making the vertical climb to the nacelle, a short school-bus-sized room that houses the machinery, including the massive generator that transforms motion into electricity.

A few steps around the generator, a little scrambling to hoist yourself up through a trap door, and you're on the roof. Sitting out there in the open air, your body anchored by cables on both sides, is like pausing at the top of the tallest Ferris wheel you could imagine. On a normal day, when the wind is blowing 18 to 22 miles an hour, it's a struggle to stand upright.

Directly in front of you, three fiberglass blades 140 feet long turn more slowly than you might expect. Surrounding you are more turbines, set along the ridgelines to catch maximum wind.

"The turbines can handle 55 to 60 mile per hour winds," says Sergio Luna, assistant operations manager at the farm. "Any faster than that, the blades will start to pitch. They're designed to protect themselves from winds that are too fierce."

But wind energy, which produces no carbon dioxide or other pollutants, isn't the only energy tapped on this farm.

"We coexist with the oil-and-gas industry," Luna explains, "and our relationship with the landowners has to be top notch."

Rancher Larry Guy leased all of his 7,000 acres to Lone Star. "Oil and gas have been my big deals over the years," Guy says. "Lone Star was scared they couldn't build a wind farm in an oil field because of cabling and pipeline connections. We've also got some big gas wells, so everybody needed to be a good neighbor."

Guy shrugged off criticism from some of his neighbors, who claim that the turbines imperil wildlife.

"We've had more quail than ever this year," he says. Plus, his "500 mama cows" and calves like to spend hot days standing in the shadows the turbines cast.

Guy has 32 turbines on his property. He makes $16,000 per year, per turbine. When the wind farm needed to build roads between the structures, Guy ground limestone from his property and sold it to the farm for hundreds of thousands of dollars. He even sells broom weeds from his land for dried floral arrangements.

Places that produce renewable energy, whether it's wind, solar, moving water or something else, can sell it directly to these retailers or through brokers. Houston, for example, is buying 10 megawatts of wind energy from Reliant and another 20 megawatts from Goldman Sachs.

To encourage the development of new renewable-energy resources, the state created an incentive program. Wind farms and other cleaner energy producers can sell "renewable energy credits," or RECs, to retailers on the open market as a separate commodity.

This means that retailers could meet the state mandate without necessarily delivering cleaner energy. But regulators still see an upside.

"An energy retailer could buy all coal, but they still have to 'retire' RECs to satisfy the mandate and be able to make green claims to consumers," says Roy McCoy, manager of regulatory support for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

"But even if all their energy came from a coal-fired plant, by purchasing RECs they forced a renewable generator to run. And since there's only so much transmission capacity out there, when a renewable generator is running, a plant with more emissions is not. So retiring RECs offsets or reduces emissions."

Challenges ahead

The U.S. and China are the world's fastest-growing major markets for wind power, according to a recent report from research firm Clean Edge. Revenue jumped 68 percent last year to reach $30.1 billion, surpassing sales of other alternative energies, including solar, ethanol and biodiesel.

But that doesn't mean there aren't challenges.

To date, wind generates only 1 percent of the nation's electricity, so it is still just a sliver of the market.

Many optimal wind sites lack the transmission lines to send electricity where it's most needed. "Transmission lines are the life nerve of the operation," Thornqvist says. "You don't see turbines in North and South Dakota, but it's not because there isn't good wind. It's because there is no way to transmit the wind."

With most turbine manufacturers based abroad, there is also a bottleneck in terms of availability. Wind energy has taken off in the U.S., and manufacturers cannot make the turbines fast enough.

Companies also worry that legislation is limping behind technology. Production tax credits that would benefit the first decade of a wind farm's life have been approved for short segments of time and then extended for short periods. The constant threat of expiration may make some developers reluctant to invest.

"To bring turbine manufacturers and other suppliers to the U.S. and encourage long-term investment in the industry, these incentives have to stabilize," says Vanessa Kellogg, director of project development at Horizon Wind Energy.

Economically, though, the cost of a wind facility is now competitive with new power plants of any kind, says Christine Real de Azua, spokesperson for the American Wind Energy Association.

The turbines are relatively easy to install and can come on-line quickly, bringing power where it is needed.

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